THEY AND I

by Jerome K. Jerome



CHAPTER I



"It is not a large house," I said. "We don't want a large house.
Two spare bedrooms, and the little three-cornered place you see
marked there on the plan, next to the bathroom, and which will just
do for a bachelor, will be all we shall require--at all events, for
the present. Later on, if I ever get rich, we can throw out a wing.
The kitchen I shall have to break to your mother gently. Whatever
the original architect could have been thinking of--"

"Never mind the kitchen," said Dick: "what about the billiard-room?"

The way children nowadays will interrupt a parent is nothing short of
a national disgrace. I also wish Dick would not sit on the table,
swinging his legs. It is not respectful. "Why, when I was a boy,"
as I said to him, "I should as soon have thought of sitting on a
table, interrupting my father--"

"What's this thing in the middle of the hall, that looks like a
grating?" demanded Robina.

"She means the stairs," explained Dick.